Copyright by Anthony Raymond Penta 2009 · 2019. 2. 8. · Anthony Raymond Penta, MFA The...
Transcript of Copyright by Anthony Raymond Penta 2009 · 2019. 2. 8. · Anthony Raymond Penta, MFA The...
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Copyright
by
Anthony Raymond Penta
2009
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The report committee for Anthony Raymond Penta
Certifies that this is the approved version of the following report:
The Last Thing She Wanted
APPROVED BY
SUPERVISING COMMITTEE:
Supervisor: ________________________
Andrew Shea
________________________
Don Howard
________________________
Charles Ramirez Berg
________________________
Richard Lewis
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The Last Thing She Wanted
by
Anthony Raymond Penta, B.S.
Report
Presented to the faculty of the Graduate School
of The University of Texas at Austin
in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Master of Fine Arts
The University of Texas at Austin
December 2009
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"The magician’s central preoccupation is with the exercise of power, but his use of
his power is as various as his methods."
~ Richard Cavendish, The Black Arts (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1967)
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The production of my thesis film would not have been possible without the
support of Rogelio Salinas and Roy Rutngamlug. To these men, with a flourish
customary to my nature and my Italian ancestors, I bow low.
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The Last Thing She Wanted
by
Anthony Raymond Penta, MFA
The University of Texas at Austin, 2008
SUPERVISOR: Andrew Shea
The following report is a description of the pre-production, production, and post-
production of the short film “The Last Thing She Wanted”, made in Austin, Texas
in 2009. It contains the original film script written by Anthony Penta and Patrick
Penta, the shot list for the film, the schedule used by the cast and crew during
principal photography, and the end credits as they appear in the completed film.
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Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Pre-Production
Production
Post-Production
APPENDIX A: Script
APPENDIX B: Shot List
APPENDIX C: Schedule
APPENDIX D: Credits
Vita
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INTRODUCTION
Like sprinkling powder on the floor to capture the footprints of a ghost,
this report should help prove that a certain gentleman from Concord,
Massachusetts named Anthony Penta, in the 38th year of his life, did indeed
attend the University of Texas at Austin, receive a Master of Fine Arts degree in
film production, and produce a thesis film called “The Last Thing She Wanted”.
I am that ghost, and it is bewildering to think that after 15 years of making
movies, I still feel I am only just beginning to make them. Half my life is gone.
The purpose of this report is to document and describe the effort involved
in making a single film. That film, like every film I have made thus far, is an
attempt to fulfill a creative desire born in the dark backward of my early
adulthood. No film ever seems to succeed as it was envisioned. The medium is
too difficult and time consuming, and one quickly discovers during the
production of even a simple film that chaos must co-exist with order if the film is
ever going to be made. There is never enough time or enough money. Golden
visions born in the solitary confines of a studio apartment are hastily sculpted in
wet clay under maddening circumstances. Movies are not the art of success, but
the art of failing gracefully. It is best to make peace with this as soon as possible.
In this regard, “The Last Thing She Wanted” is my most graceful failure. The
sensitivity of its writing, the methodical skill of its camera work, and the beauty
of its drama, surpasses everything I have ever attempted to do. There are things I
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wish I could change, scenes I could reshoot endlessly if endless time were
available, but I know I would never get them quite right. I have taken Penny’s
story as far as I could take it. It is time to step away.
As this one film is the culmination of 15 years labor, some background
information is required.
In 1992, at age 22, I saw a film called 2001: A Space Odyssey. At the time
I was in the second half of a long undergraduate education at Eastern Michigan
University. I was a self-styled musician and fine artist. By this I mean I played
bass guitar in a rock band, and I took studio art classes. I could draw pretty well
back then, and in college I continued the habits of my childhood; I sat alone in
my room most nights listening to music, dreaming and making things, and I
collaborated on projects with friends. I worked the night shift at the EMU library
(an ideal job) and would often stop by the video store after my shift to rent horror
movies, fantasy movies, and the occasional sci-fi movie. This is how I first saw
Gothic, Repo Man, The Haunting, and hundreds of other eccentric and bizarre
films. I watched movies for entertainment. Movies were for fun. What a director
was, and what they did, was a mystery to me. In the early 1990s, information
about filmmaking was not readily available. This was before the era of DVDs and
“bonus materials”. Before the Internet. It was easy to be in the dark about things
back then. Looking back, I think it was more exciting that way. The cover of
2001: A Space Odyssey was a rudimentary painting of four astronauts on the
surface of the Moon, with the Earth rising above the horizon in the night sky. It
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looked like an extremely boring movie, but I rented it anyway because I had a
vague memory of someone telling me it was pretty good.
Watching that movie started a sea change in my work as a creative artist.
Toward the end of the film, after 2 hours of enthralling yet utterly banal drama,
an astronaut discovers a monolith floating above Jupiter. Entering this monolith,
he travels into what appears to be another dimension. Over the course of the next
20 minutes, the astronaut (and the viewer) is shot through a corridor of light and
spilled out onto a vast alien landscape. It’s an astonishing sequence and it caught
me off guard. After staring at the screen for 15 minutes, I began to wonder: Who
is responsible for this movie? Who is behind this floating, disembodied camera?
Who is at the controls? I decided to find out.
During my next shift at the library, I began reading about movies. I
learned that a man named Stanley Kubrick was responsible for 2001: A Space
Odyssey. I also learned he was a reclusive genius. I encountered new words.
Cinerama. Panavision. Matte painting. I read as much as I could.
Truffaut/Hitchcock. David Cook’s History of Narrative Film. The Five C’s of
Cinematography. The art of the film director was described to me for the first
time, and in my mind it was like sorcery. This medium, the medium of film, was
a sorcerer’s medium. It was an arcane, powerful technology employed by
reclusive geniuses like Kubrick, and only a few people knew how to use it. Since
the rules were always changing, constant study was required. These books I was
reading, these technical manuals filled with charts and diagrams and careful
descriptions of how little pieces of equipment worked and what they were used
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for, were like spell books. The technical mastery required to make an even
passable film utterly dwarfed the technical requirements of other art making
practices. Painting on a canvas with brushes or playing bass guitar in a rock band
seemed irrelevant by comparison. I emerged from my studies at the library an
apprentice filmmaker. A sorcerer’s apprentice.
I began making films of my own right away. There was no film program at
Eastern Michigan University in 1992. The only way for a college student to make
movies back then, in that place, was to buy a super-8 camera at a thrift store.
There was also the possibility of taking a few classes at the local public access TV
station in order to checkout free SVHS video equipment.
I did both. The first super-8 camera I purchased was inoperable. The
exposure meter was broken and the five or six rolls of film I photographed with it
were overexposed. I took that camera on a whale watch in Gloucestershire,
Massachusetts, and on long walks around Ypsilanti. I photographed anything
and everything. I still have those 50-foot reels. The first flashing, diffuse images
I projected on my apartment wall, of whales breaching and diving, of blooming
magnolia trees, of red tables on campus after a rain storm, were so beautiful they
made me want to cry, even though I could hardly see them. The second super-8
camera I purchased worked. That Summer I convinced my friend Ken Cormier, a
student in the creative writing program at EMU, to write a short film. I didn’t
care what it was, so long as we could shoot the movie after-hours in the EMU
library. Ken wrote a movie called “The French Retards Clean Up”, about a group
of French janitors watching a Jerry Lewis movie. It was dumb but it was fun, and
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the friends we roped into playing “retards” enjoyed themselves during the 2-day
shoot. That film, finally titled “The Retards Clean Up”, was my first completed
film.
After “The Retards Clean Up” became a resounding success in our living
rooms, Ken and I decided to make a longer film. A better film. A film in color.
Thus we began work on Marwood’s Ghost. Myself, Ken, and Ken’s then wife
Julie, dreamed up Marwood’s Ghost one afternoon over tea. It was to be a
Victorian ghost story, about two skeptical brothers, Walter and Reginald, who
visit their cousin Marwood after they learn from their aunt that Marwood has
seen a ghost. Walter and Reginald don’t believe Marwood’s story, but in the end,
it is they who find the ghost, and Marwood who is left lonely and skeptical. The
40-page script Ken finally wrote for this film, set in the year 1880, required 15
actors, a lot of props and period costumes, and several authentic locations. We
had no money and we were all full-time students, but we had a dream.
For the next two years we labored to make Marwood’s Ghost a reality. We
began photography with a VHS video camera Ken purchased at a thrift store. I
bought a wide-angle lens attachment and some cheap lighting equipment at a
camera store in Chelsea, Michigan. Julie had access to several Victorian homes
through the historic preservation department at EMU, so authentic locations
were assured. With Ken’s camera, Julie’s connections, and the spare change in
our pockets, we began production.
For the first six months of production on Marwood’s Ghost, we were
plagued by bad luck. The actors we chose to play Walter and Reginald (friends of
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ours) were unreliable and difficult to schedule. They also could not seem to
memorize more than one sentence at a time, which made me want to pull my hair
out. One morning before shooting a scene, I asked them why they looked so
tired. Their response was, they had been up all night, high on LSD, and were only
just “coming down”. Ken and I attended a production of an Ibsen play that Fall,
performed entirely by actors who were 6-8 years old. We marveled at the power
and subtlety of the performances, and the seemingly magical ability these
children displayed in memorizing long passages of dialog. Our bad luck
culminated with Ken dropping our camera on a bus home from Ann Arbor,
rendering it useless. We knew changes needed to be made if we were ever going
to complete Marwood’s Ghost. After six months of struggling to make the film, a
broken camera gave us a good excuse to shut down production and we re-cast
with more committed actors.
To kick-start production a second time I bought a SVHS camera with
student loan money. It was hugely expensive. At the time I thought the image
quality was incredible. For the next nine months we photographed the movie on
weekends, building props in our living rooms and assembling period costumes
from what seemed like thin air. Those were the days. I still have a big box of
tapes from that production. Every once in a while I’ll dust one off and pop it in a
VCR, horrified the hear my adolescent voice shouting nonsense from behind the
camera as friends of mine parade around the woods in makeshift Victorian garb.
When we finished production on “Marwood’s Ghost”, my brother Patrick,
a classical guitarist, began composing the soundtrack for a small chamber group.
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I began editing the movie on linear SVHS tape machines at the Ann Arbor
Community Television Network. After six months of post-production, nearly two
years after the film had been dreamed-up over tea in Ken and Julie’s kitchen, I
emerged with Marwood’s Ghost: a 75 minute Victorian ghost-story. Watching it
for the first time with Ken and Julie was a magical experience. We had done it.
We had made our movie, and it was delightful.
We decided at once to have a proper screening for the cast and crew. A
little TV in someone’s living room would not do. Ken and Julie both worked at
the Michigan Theater, so it was a shoe-in. We setup a screening date, sent a copy
of the movie to the Ann Arbor News, and published notices in local magazines.
We loved the idea that total strangers might read about our movie and attend a
free public screening. What would they think?
The Ann Arbor News published a review of the film to coincide with our
screening. The resident film reviewer had screened the tape we sent him, and
had published his review alongside reviews for other movies currently screening
in theaters. I’ll never forget the headline. It read:
WELL, AT LEAST THIS LOCALLY MADE FLICK IS A FREEBEE.
The review was savage. He attacked the film from every direction.
Standing there with the newspaper in my hands, I became nauseous and
disoriented. How could he do this? Didn’t he know I was just some broke guy
with a video camera? No one made homegrown feature films on video back then.
No one. It never happened. It was a miracle our movie existed at all. A bunch of
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friends got together and made a feature film set in 1880 for no money. How
could he not forgive our faults?
When the nausea subsided, I learned something. The Gods in their
infinite cruelty and wisdom sent a thunderbolt down from Olympus and it
burned into my brain. I learned my first lesson as an apprentice sorcerer. It was
the First Law of Filmmaking. It is this:
People don’t care.
People don’t care that you made a feature film with no money. They don’t
care how long the movie took to make, or what obstacles you had to overcome to
make it. They don’t care that you taught yourself how to make movies by reading
books at the library, or that you bought all of your equipment at a thrift store.
They simply do not care. When the movie begins to play in front of them, they
judge your work against every movie they have ever seen. They don’t care that
every movie they have ever seen, on average, cost several million dollars. That is
not their problem. All that remains after all the work is done is what is up there,
on screen.
Quite suddenly, I graduated to the next level. I wasn’t an apprentice
anymore. I was something else. I was wiser and angrier. The review hurt but I
saw the truth in it, and I wasn’t going to give up without a fight. I steeled myself
for a second attack.
I decided to make another movie with my SVHS camera, but this time, I
decided to spend six months and $3000, not two years and $3000. Also, it was
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going to be serious. It was going to be a horror film. The result, an adaptation of
a supernatural horror story called “The Hound”, by H.P. Lovecraft, was as
financially and critically successful film as any short filmmaker can wish a film to
be. I finished the film in 1997. It screened at film festivals for a few years and
was distributed on video as part of a compilation of short horror films. To this
day I receive royalty checks in the mail because of that movie. Recently I
discovered the movie was being pirated (i.e. shared for free) on the Internet. I
walked around for a whole day grinning from ear to ear. I even downloaded it
and watched it again. People still seem to like it.
Bolstered by the success of “The Hound”, I purchased a Bolex 16mm
camera, a tape splicer, and a set of hand-crank rewinds. No more videotape and
public access cable TV stations. I wanted to be Georges Méliès: a self-contained
one-man movie studio. By this time, 1998, I had become a full-fledged librarian.
I was working the reference desk at a little library in Hartland, Michigan. The
library was across the street from a cemetery. It was in that cemetery, on my
lunch break, where I began writing “The Hapless Antiquarian”. It was to be an
homage to Edward Gorey’s macabre tales and illustrations, about a fiendish book
collector who buys a cursed book, attempts to get rid of it, and finally dies at the
hands of Fate.
I made that film with a few close friends, and it turned out well. I had the
negatives cut at Peak Film in Chicago, and a release print was struck at Filmcraft
in Detroit. It is the only film I have ever followed through to an optical sound
print. Holding that film reel in my hands, I knew I was part of the club. I was a
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member of an ancient, magical order alongside D.W. Griffith, the Lumiére
brothers, and Cecil B. DeMille. I had made an actual film on film. Go get a 16mm
projector and I’ll show it to you. Much to my surprise, “The Hapless
Antiquarian” won the Best Michigan Filmmaker award at the 39th Ann Arbor
Film Festival. The second real epiphany of my life happened soon after. Walking
across the street through the afternoon sun, privately basking in the success of
my film, I realized I would be making movies for the rest of my life. They might
not be grand movies, or big-budget Hollywood movies, but they would be my
movies. This realization, and the resulting calm it produced, was placed in my
heart like a gift from the gods, and it has permanently cleared a space I can
retreat to whenever I feel I am not getting famous fast enough.
I moved to Providence, Rhode Island in 2002 and lived there for four
years while working at the Rhode Island School of Design. In Providence I made
two whimsical super-8 films with my then-girlfriend, Stephanie, a Princeton
graduate who shared my passion for Victoriana and whimsy. Both movies were
silent fantasies presented like instructional films from the 1920s, about events in
Rhode Island history. It was all made-up stuff, of course. The films screened at a
few festivals, including the Newport International Film Festival. The Newport
festival was the most opulent film festival I have ever attended. Actual celebrities
were present. Stephanie and I were treated like royalty, and we consumed
enough free lobster and designer vodka to cover the cost of our films several
times over.
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I also made one ambitious digital video movie in Providence called “The
Black Balloon”, a trilogy of silent fantasies set to Erik Satie’s Gnossiennes. I had
high hopes for “The Black Balloon”, but it did not do very well. I sent it to 25
festivals and only got accepted into one, the 2005 Boston Underground Film
Festival. I won the Best Experimental Film award at that festival, and this
crowned the film with its only laurel at its only public screening. Satisfied by this
small yet impressive-sounding encomium, I counted my blessings and put the
movie away forever.
It was during the production of “The Black Balloon” that I began to feel
dissatisfied with my artistic progress. I wanted to climb to a higher level but I
wasn’t sure how. For the stranded sailor sequence in the movie, I had to build a
large makeshift hot-air balloon out of paper mache – a balloon large enough for
the actor playing the sailor to sit beneath. In the film, a sailor who has been
trapped on a deserted island for many years builds a hot air balloon out of rags.
He then launches himself off the island and makes his way to the mainland. We
filmed that sequence in Beavertail State Park, in Rhode Island, which is very
windy. We shot the scene in a deep basin near the ocean. The actor playing the
sailor was not an actor. He was a banjo player. Directing the sequence did not go
so well, and I found I didn’t really know what to tell him to help his performance
along. He did not seem happy with me, and the incessant wind, which pounded
against our ears and compelled us to shout at each other for hours, did not
temper our moods. We managed to get through the scene somehow. At the end
of the day, depressed by the gnawing thought I was a fraud, I picked up the giant
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paper mache balloon I had built and began the arduous task of walking it back to
the van I had rented, up the side of the basin. I realized then, struggling to get
uphill, that I had come to the end of my rope. I was tired of laboring in obscurity
and isolation on these goofy silent films, spending all of my time and money on
what was beginning to feel like mediocre work. I admonished myself for not
seeking help. I didn’t know quite what I was doing and I was unable to
communicate effectively with actors. I was making movies that were doomed to
poorly attended screenings at third-tier film festivals. It was time for a change.
At the encouragement of a few friends at RISD I decided to make a
realistic commitment to filmmaking. By this time I was 35. There were people
teaching film production at RISD that had fewer film credits than myself. I had
made more films, had won more awards, and was more active as an independent
film artist than they were. They were respected for their creativity and earned a
living as creative artists and art educators. I wanted to be on the other side of the
fence. So I applied to eight graduate film schools.
It all happened rather quickly. I got into a few schools. UT called and
offered me a scholarship. I accepted. I quit my job at RISD. I sent my
belongings to Austin, Texas, and said goodbye to Providence and the happiest
four years of my life. I didn’t want to leave but, in life, sometimes you have to
leave. At the New Haven train station I said goodbye to Stephanie forever. I
traveled to New York City to visit Patrick one last time. After a week I got on a
plane headed for Austin, Texas.
That is where this report properly begins.
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PRE-PRODUCTION
The development of “The Last Thing She Wanted” began formally in
488M, a 3rd-year thesis pre-production class required by the department. The
purpose of this class is presumably to help 3rd-year production students develop
and refine their thesis film, the culmination of their work at UT. For those
students ready and willing to put realistic thesis-film ideas on the table, the class
can be a productive and valuable 14 weeks.
I had a few problems with the class at first. When 488M began I was
already in the midst of developing a thesis film with my brother, Patrick, who had
worked with me on my films for many years. Since the previous Fall, Patrick and
I had been writing a film entitled “Bottom’s Dream”, about a lonely illustrator
named Travis who gets a job as a nighttime security guard at a women’s
department store. While on duty at the store, Travis meets a beautiful young
runaway named Tina, who claims to have been secretly living in the store at
night. Travis and Tina fall madly in love, but hide their clandestine romance
from the people who work the day shift. Their affair doesn’t last long. Jack, the
day manager, becomes suspicious after finding a few drawings Travis has made of
Tina. When Jack confronts Travis with the drawings, Travis claims the girl is a
figment of his imagination. Jack counters by pointing out how the girl looks
exactly like Tina Shoal, the deceased daughter of the store’s owners, Morton and
Barbara Shoal. Jack explains how Tina committed suicide after being disfigured
in a fire at the store, and how Morton and Barbara have quietly covered up her
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death. That night Travis meets Tina one last time, and demands to know who she
really is and what really happened to her. Tina is not happy to hear her story
repeated out loud, and Travis finds himself face-to-face with an angry ghost who,
like Caliban, lashes out at the mirror.
That’s the idea, anyway. Coming up with that synopsis took six months of
solid labor and $200 in cell phone calls. It’s still not quite finished. Patrick and I
hashed through the idea from top to bottom every few weeks, tossing a text file
back and forth from New York City to Austin via email. By the time 488M started
in the Fall of 2009, I had a 48-page 1st draft of the script.
For this reason, I was in a quandary at the start of the semester. 488M is
structured such that script revisions are handed in on a specific time-table.
Students are not expected to have a complete, full-bodied idea loaded up at the
start. It is a time for auditioning ideas. It’s a script development class. I was way
passed this phase with “Bottom’s Dream”. At the start of the Fall semester I was
not interested in blowing little script bubbles in the air to watch other students
poke at them. I had a fully formed thesis in my hands. It was powerfully written
and I was ready to start pre-production. For this reason I petitioned the
department to be excluded from the class. They declined, so I entered 488M that
Fall with a scowl on my face.
An old joke: Question: How do you make God laugh? Answer: Tell him
your plans.
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I never made “Bottom’s Dream”. There are a few reasons why this is the
case. For one, the idea blossomed into a project of unmanageable size. I wanted
to make a 30-minute film that felt like a lost Twilight Zone episode. Patrick and I
inflated the idea to a 48 page 1st draft which was sure to reach 60 pages by its 2nd
or 3rd. It had become too big. In addition, the relentless comparisons people
made to the 1987 film Mannequin were grinding us down. It seemed all I had to
do was give someone the first sentence of the pitch -- A lonely loser gets a job as
a night security guard at a department store and meets a woman who has been
secretly living there at night -- for that person to exclaim: "Oh, like that movie
Mannequin!” Finally, the task of securing a fully articulated department store
within striking distance of Austin, one that would allow us to shoot for 10 nights
from 11pm-6pm, seemed implausible. I met with members of my thesis
committee about the film, and for a while I was set on making it, but as the
semester got underway I began having doubts about the possibility of producing
“Bottom’s Dream”. When Patrick and I finally re-worked the 1st draft and
outlined a much longer 2nd draft, I pulled the plug. Some other day.
So, instead of bringing “Bottom’s Dream” to 488M, I began to audition
other scripts. This solved two problems at once. I would not have to present
“Bottom’s Dream” as a potential thesis (as if I had just started writing the script)
and I would get a chance to audition a few new ideas. One of them might just
blossom into a viable thesis film.
I wrote a new script right away called “Harold & Franklin”, about a boy
named Harold and his imaginary relationship with his doll Franklin. It was a
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movie about friendship and sacrifice and childhood. I adored it. I’ll make this
film one day, but decided not to make it as my thesis. “Bottom’s Dream” had lots
of dialog, lots of little scenes, and lots for me to do as a director. It required
extensive auditions and a month of solid rehearsal. While developing that film, I
felt like I was priming myself to do something impressive. Something elaborate.
“Harold & Franklin” was too simple. I didn’t want my experience at UT to
culminate with directing a 7-year-old boy and a dwarf in a Muppet suit. I looked
at my 1st year narrative film “Tango Theory” and thought about how successful I
thought it was, how impressed I was by its realism and its creepiness. That was
the kind of film I wanted. I wanted Fatal Attraction. I wanted The Piano
Teacher. So I retreated to my underground laboratory and wiped the chalkboard
clean. I thought about what I wanted to get out of a thesis film and what my
purpose was in coming to a graduate film school. What did I want my thesis film
to do for me?
As detailed in the introduction to this report, when I came to UT I had
already made a handful of small films and had gotten into a handful of small
festivals. I had won a few small awards. In my first two years at UT I made three
more small films. Making yet another small film did not seem like a very exciting
proposition. I didn’t want my thesis to be small.
The part of filmmaking I have always approached with the most anxiety is
working with actors. This is partially due to my congenital shyness. I don’t like
telling people what to do. Fellini didn’t either, so I don’t feel so bad about it. In
addition, the atrocious acting in my long film Marwood’s Ghost spooked me. It
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dragged the film down like an anchor and resulted in a scathing newspaper
review, which left me permanently gun-shy. Subsequently, the films I made
afterward were silent fantasies. They were fun and they were marginally
successful, but they were not dramatic showcases.
Attending a graduate film production program meant trying to get over
that fear. My goal at UT has been to force myself to make movies like a grown-
up. “Tango Theory” was proof-of-concept. It was a taught, atmospheric thriller,
which, though only marginally successful, proved I could make an involving film
with adults talking to each other in something that resembled the real world.
My second-year film “You Ruined Everything” was a bit of a throwback. I
let my hair down for that one and made a silent film. I’m proud of the result but I
didn’t learn a lot making it. There was no dialog. Characters didn’t relate to each
other in real time. There was no action and reaction.
So I made a private list of elements my thesis had to contain for it to be
satisfying to me. It couldn’t be small. The script needed to throw me in the
dramatic deep end. It had to have dramatic conversations and real stakes. I had
to be able to get in there with my actors with a fine brush and make little, detailed
strokes. I needed to conduct lengthy auditions, and there would be equally
lengthy rehearsals.
I cleared a mental space for the film and waited for its arrival.
“The Last Thing She Wanted” began to take shape after a conversation
with my brother, Patrick. Patrick had just gotten out of an intense but brief
romance with a woman. She came on strong, told him she loved him, then after a
few months she pulled away and stopped answering telephone calls. He was left
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marooned and shaken by the whole affair. He didn’t understand why she pulled
away and she gave no satisfying reason. He felt like a fly with its wings torn off.
He said to me: “What kind of person does this? It’s like buying a flower just to
take it home and watch it die. What kind of woman would buy a flower just to
take it home and watch it die?”
That image haunted me. One beautiful image can be the start of a film.
Over the next few months I began following this woman. Her name was Penny. I
saw her living alone in an abandoned house. She bought an orchid, took it home,
and set it on the table. I saw her going about her day. She was following
someone. Who was she following? She was following her ex-husband’s fiancé.
Why? She was following her because she was going to kill her and steal her car.
Why did she need the car? She needed it to pick up her ex-husband’s daughter
from school. Why was she kidnapping her ex-husband’s daughter? Because he
killed her son, and she wanted revenge.
This is how the movie took shape. I followed Penny and I wrote down
what she did and what I heard her say. I sat alone in my far-seeing place and
transcribed events as I saw them. It felt like automatic writing. I emerged with a
1st draft, and I presented it to my 488M thesis development class, as surprised as
they were by the script’s content and subject matter.
Opinions were divided. It was a powerful and dramatic script. It was
macabre, single-minded, and it made hearts beat. But the film was about
sacrifice, the sacrifice of an innocent girl, and therefore most readers found it
cruel and unremittingly dark. It was an Old Testament story. There were no
winners, only losers condemned to death before the story began. It was fatalistic.
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Some of the students in 488M rebelled against the death scenes in the film,
particularly the off-screen murder of the child. Others thought these scenes were
necessary and could not be removed without weakening the story. The
instructor, Scott Rice, was instrumental in developing the movie at an early stage,
even though he sometimes balked at the content of the film. To his credit, he
committed to the idea like it was his own movie, and he helped shape the first
half a great deal.
When I took the script to my thesis committee, opinions were similarly
divided. Understandably, a few of the members of my committee were put-off by
the content of the film. Penny’s manipulation and murder of Willa, the little girl,
was the most difficult pill to swallow. Several urged me to end the film in such a
way that Willa lived, convinced that I could have the film I wanted and make a
more publically satisfying film by doing so. I was open to many suggestions and
incorporated some into the script right away, but for my own reasons, I believed
Willa’s death was a necessity.
Looking back, I think I made a mistake by not adding a woman to my
thesis committee. A woman’s voice would have added a useful dimension to the
dialog. My thesis committee is composed of men with children the same age as
the girl who is murdered in my film, so it is no surprise the script was a tough
sell. Most men who read the script or watch a cut of the film assume Penny is a
psychotic, therefore a totally “unsympathetic” character who is probably deluded
or lying when she accuses her ex-husband of killing her son. If they sympathize
with anyone, they sympathize with Peter, the ex-husband. Women, on the other
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hand, tend to believe Penny’s story as she tells it, even after we see her murder
Peter’s fiancé in cold blood. Women tend to sympathize with Penny, whose
mission, though bloody and cruel, is also empowering. As proof of this point, one
of the 488M students in my class, a woman who was pregnant at the time she
read my script, was strongly in favor of the merciless tone of the script, and
argued in class that the film was meaningless unless it ended with Willa’s death.
All of these reactions to the film, both for and against, have been
instrumental in prodding the film forward and making it stronger. One of the
most helpful conversations I had about the film was with Dan Stuyck, a second-
year MFA production student. Over a bottle of wine at Vino Vino (my favorite
Austin wine bar) Dan and I hashed through the second half of the film and
strengthened several weak plot points. Half way through our conversation, Dan
slammed his hand down on the bar top and exclaimed: “It’s got to be airtight like
a submarine!” Dan fetched a napkin and a pen from the bartender, and together
we wrote down some steps the script needed to take.
I was never able to make the film totally airtight. Thrillers are difficult.
Every moment becomes linked to the one before it, and little bits of information
become hugely important to the audience. A misheard line or the absence of a
single brief conversation can lead the movie down the wrong path. After talking
with Dan and revising the script, there still remained some confusion in the film,
particularly in the second half. Did Peter really kill Penny’s son? Where has
Penny taken Willa? How do the cops find her? What does Penny tell the police
detective on the phone? After a few months I felt the script needed some fresh
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perspective, so I sent it to my brother, Patrick, and asked him to come on board
to help me take it on the last leg of its journey.
Patrick didn’t like the movie at first. He balked at the content of the script
and its fatalistic ending. I talked with Patrick on the phone about some of the
negative comments I had received. This caused him to rally for the cause and dig
deeper. I think the moment he came onboard was when he said: “Well, if you
don’t like the script for this film, I guess you don’t like Greek tragedy either”.
After I told him how much I liked what he had just said, he was hooked. Patrick’s
first contribution to the film was to inflate the role police detective character, Karl
Saybrook. Patrick took a step back and said: “Wait a minute. As far as the
audience is concerned, this movie is about two psychopaths. Penny and Peter.
They are on the phone the whole time, locked in a titanic battle for control. The
audience isn’t going to be rooting for either one. We just saw Penny kill a woman
in cold blood, and Peter seems like a garden-variety child-abuser. Who does the
audience root for? Willa? Probably not. Let’s put someone in the film who
comes forward in the second half and sees what is going on, someone who, like
the audience, sees that saving Willa is the most important thing. This person
tries to quickly manipulate Penny and Peter in order to buy enough time for Willa
to be saved. The tragedy, of course, is that Willa is not saved”.
Since we already had a character in the movie that could do all of this --
Karl the Detective -- we inflated Karl’s role to become a stand-in for the audience.
He was our second-act hero. We thought about the film in a new way. We
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reasoned that the entire film was like a story Karl was telling in later life, the
story of “the one that got away”. The second half of the film was Karl’s movie.
So Patrick and I set to work on the script, adding scenes that inflated
Karl’s role. The film benefited greatly, and when we had a new draft I felt like I
had a real movie on my hands, so I dropped the visor and rushed into battle.
As I began scouting locations, finding locations, losing locations and
finding new ones, stumbling through pre-production with a peg-leg and an eye-
patch, swinging wildly, I began building props, storyboarding sequences with
Rogelio Salinas, developing a lighting plan with Roy Rutngamlug, casting actors,
and finally working on the shot list.
Ying Liu, an MFA production student from China, and Sydney Andrews,
an MFA actor, helped me at the outset. During auditions I asked Sydney to help
read. I learned a few important lessons during my auditions. I record them here
for posterity.
I. In an audition it is more important to summon your passion
and speak with conviction than to be polite. When an actor comes into the
audition room, which is probably an uninspiring place to begin with, they do not
know what is in your head. They cannot see the movie or the character as clearly
as you see them. They also do not know you or your work. Is this movie some
dumb class project, or is it the real deal? Is it something that will screen at
festivals? Speaking with authority and conviction about the character they are
there to play accomplishes two things. It shows the actor you have the courage to
pick them up and lead them forward, and it shows this movie is more than just a
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pipe dream -- it's the real deal. At least, it is to you. I was too polite at first.
Lying in bed the first night, reviewing auditions in my mind's eye, I realized my
folly. I needed to take charge of each audition and the character each actor was
there to play. I needed to make demands. If I saw a performance that was muted
or not what I wanted, I needed to step forward and lead the actor in a new
direction. For the character of Vanessa in particular, I rehearsed what I needed
to say to get the Vanessa I saw in my mind's eye to appear in the room. I gave
myself marching orders.
II. Get an actor to be the reader. There is absolutely no substitute for
having an actor in the room as your reader. Asking one of the MFA actors to help
read was the best thing I could have done. With Sydney Andrews in the room, my
audition experience went from black and white to Technicolor. A real actor can
give things, they can perform, and they can draw the auditioning actor out in a
way that is impossible with a "dry" reader. Get both the reader and the actor on
their feet. Start covertly rehearsing the material right away. Start directing
during auditions.
Really, that's the sum of what I learned during auditions. Start directing
right away. Don't wait for the movie to "start".
Casting was long and difficult, especially for the role of Willa, for which I
read 25 girls age 6-13. I auditioned so many young girls and became so good at it,
I could probably do it professionally. The moms loved me. I was organized, up-
front with my production schedule, and sent the girls away floridly, brimming
with compliments. Several moms emailed me afterward to say they have never
been to such a well-organized and thoughtful audition. The kids had a great time
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reading with Sydney and I wish I could have used them all. In the end I could
only choose one. Working with Olivia Draguicevich, the seven-year-old girl who
played the part of Willa, was one of the highlights of my stay in Austin.
I could spend another ten pages of this report dealing with my efforts to
find the perfect actor for each role. The casting of Penny was difficult, and I
labored over the choice. I hand-picked three local actresses to read for the part,
and each one auditioned for the role twice – once alone, and once again with two
different girls reading for the part of Willa. They were all great in their own way,
but T. Lynn Mikeska, a local actor, singer, songwriter, and burlesque dancer,
owned the character and changed my vision of Penny. Things fell into place
quickly after I decided upon an actor to play Peter. When I cast Karl Anderson, a
swaggering, unhinged Texan with unruly hair and piercing eyes, I felt like my
choices became even easier.
As we began rehearsals the entire cast marveled at what a talented bunch
we had assembled. For a month preceding production we rehearsed in the UT
studios. We broke the script apart and breathed new life into the movie. The
male actors were on cloud 9, and Olivia and Lynn got along splendidly. The
actors loved the script, and felt like they were in an ambitious, important movie
that was going to be good. I was glad “The Last Thing She Wanted” was goiong to
be my thesis. I was directing something powerful, with real actors. I thought
about the day long ago at Beavertail State Park in Rhode Island -- the day I shot
the stranded sailor scene for “The Black Balloon”. It was the day I struggled to
get a paper mache hot air balloon up a cliff, upset that my films were wallowing in
mediocrity, wishing I could make it to the next level but not sure how to get there.
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Rehearsing “The Last Thing She Wanted” at UT with my actors, seeing
what a strong movie it was going to be, I realized I had made it to the next level. I
am indebted to the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin for helping me get
there, and of course all of my friends and fellow students at UT whom I have
learned from and who have prodded me forward. My challenge in the future will
be to prod myself forward, and to remember the amount of work it takes to make
a quality film.
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PRODUCTION
After production ended I returned to civilian life, which meant sleeping
late, reading from a stack of unfinished books disinterestedly, and making to-do
lists. I also began writing this report. What I remember most of the 12-day shoot
was being hot and uncomfortable most of the time. The unflattering production
stills of me directing -- sweaty, pudgy, and curly haired -- will soon be lost forever
in a tragic hard drive crash.
During production I was helped considerably by Ryan Marquess, an older,
returning undergraduate student I met in a feature script writing class in the
Summer of 2008. Ryan picked up a great deal of slack, helped me organize and
schedule the shoot, and was on-hand every morning during production to get
each day going. I was also blessed with a 1st-year MFA student named Tomasz
Werner, a tall, soft-spoken Minnesotan with sandy blonde hair and secret
reserves of skill, which he distributed generously wherever he saw the need.
Tomasz worked tirelessly doing whatever needed to be done, shape shifting at
will into a gaffer, grip, audio recordist, and assistant director. His calm was
implacable, even when faced with my sometimes volcanic impatience. Besides
these two new additions, my old button men Roy Rutngamlug and Rogelio
Salinas (aided by Roy's friend John-Paul Bujnoch) formed the core group. Roy
and John-Paul proved to be fast, efficient lighting designers, and Rogelio was, as
always, beside me from the beginning to the very end, prodding the day forward
and always there within arm’s reach.
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The movie was photographed in HD video. The lighting plan was made as
simple as possible: large, single-source HMI’s outside windows, with minimal
lighting indoors. I looked at Adrian Lyne’s films for inspiration, and also a
contemporary horror film called Midnight Meat Train, which, though not a very
great film, was beautifully photographed. I made Roy, Rogelio, and John-Paul
watch Midnight Meat Train, and we discussed how we could simulate that film’s
mood and lighting design. I also made a Web page for the film, and uploaded
images from Adrian Lyne films so the crew and the costume designer, Erin
Randall, could have something concrete to study. I wanted the same naturalistic
look Lyne got for 9½ Weeks and Unfaithful, and I thought we could approximate
that look quickly with lighting instruments available to us through UT. These
were mainly three 1.2K HMI lights and a complement of lower wattage HMIs. I
read an interview with Japanese director once, a director who came to the U.S. to
direct a film in Hollywood. He said he was quickly frustrated by the American
system, because in Japan, they light a room once, then shoot everything under
that one lighting setup. But in the U.S. they re-light for every shot, so the film
takes twice as long to shoot as he thought it should. This was vindicating to read.
I decided to make “The Last Thing She Wanted” the Japanese way. I had a 38-
page script and 10 days to shoot it. That meant developing a method in pre-
production that prioritized speed. My one regret, which I struggled with in post,
was sometimes not using enough fill light indoors, especially on faces. Next time
I will devise some sort of hand-held or camera-mounted light, and make sure
foreground faces have enough fill. I was able to bring faces up during color
correction, but it is no substitute for exposing them properly on-set. In addition
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to the HMI lights, I checked out a small complement of flags and nets, but we
rarely used them. I loathe flags, nets, silks, and other lighting accoutrements. I’ll
use them when necessary, but I don’t like getting attached to them, especially
when they are used to limit light. Why not move the light back a bit or choose a
lower-wattage light the first time? Lighting gear always requires additional c-
stands, c-strand attachments, and sand bags. These things slow a production
down, and they double the time it takes to light a scene. All that gear feeds the
seemingly endless need to tweak and fiddle with lights to get them “just right”.
Like the Wendigo from Indian mythology – the more you feed it the bigger and
hungrier it grows. I smiled from ear-to-ear when I saw a behind-the-scenes peek
into Francis Ford Coppola’s new movie Youth Without Youth, shot on HD video.
The lighting gear was causing Coppola to pull his hair out in frustration, and he
openly admonished a production manager for allowing the equipment to grow to
three times its original size, requiring several attendant trucks to move it from
place to place. For all his ambition and epic scope, Coppola likes to fly a light
aircraft. I do too.
At the start of every day, Roy, John-Paul, Roger, Tomasz, and myself held
a pow-wow around my shot list. We discussed what was going to happen, where
lights needed to be setup, and how the camera was going to move. We then set to
work, supervising the labor of our “day players” when necessary. Roy and John-
Paul setup lights, Roger and I setup the camera and related equipment, and
Tomasz helped wherever he was needed. I bring a music stand with me and
always have the shot list nearby. Want to know what we are shooting next? Go
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look. We never had more than eight crewmembers on-set. Sometimes we had as
few as four. I am convinced that a feature film could be made with the same
amount of people and equipment. A good feature, I mean. A film with artful
lighting and camerawork. I think The Godfather is such an example, as is sex,
lies, and videotape and Down By Law.
One of the major contributing factors to our speed during production was
that I had rehearsed the movie with the actors extensively before shooting. This
was invaluable work, and it reduced my on-set contact with them to a minimum.
We had already discussed the script many times, blocked every scene, and were
on the same page before they arrived. They knew what was required. I was free
to operate the camera when I wanted, and I only needed to exert a light influence
upon them during the shoot. Our child actor Olivia, seven years old during
production, did not need any direction other than basic blocking. Rehearsals are
golden.
The only asset that would have been a nice addition to the film was an AD,
an assistant director. I was the de facto AD for the film. I had been unable to
find anyone to do it preceding production. Having to direct, co-DP, co-operate,
and AD my own film was too much work. Herding people to and fro and cracking
the whip when needed is a tough job. It is probably not appropriate for the
director to do this, since he has to maintain a delicate relationship with his cast
and crew. I had to talk a bit too much and oversee too many issues. This work
necessarily irritates people.
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The first day of shooting was a big ego-boost for everyone. All we needed
to do that first day was photograph the MOS scene of Penny riding a city bus, and
then the long car-drive conversation between Penny and Willa, which we were
shooting at Austin Studios, against their massive green screen. For the bus it was
just myself, Roger, and Lynn. In the weeks preceding production, Gloria Holder
in the RTF department had been struggling to get the CAPMETRO people to
allow me to shoot on a city bus under UT’s insurance policy. Using UT’s
insurance instead of a private policy would save me roughly $1000. The whole
deal was teetering on edge for weeks. As I moved precipitously close to
production, my congenital impatience began to get the better of me. It was just a
bus, I reasoned. I rode the bus every day for nothing without insurance. Why
couldn’t I bring a video camera and a friend with me and just shoot the damn
thing for free? So I did it the Italian way. One Friday morning I got up at dawn
and jumped on a CAPMETRO bus outside my apartment. I can’t remember how
I started a conversation with the driver, Rick Kole, but I told him who I was, the
nature of the project, and asked him if it was OK to get on his bus with a video
camera if I didn’t disturb anyone. I could shoot the whole thing when no one was
looking, and in an hour or so, badda boom, I’d be done. He loved the idea, and
we talked about his route, parts of the trip empty of passengers, and the
television show Desperate Housewives, which we both loved. I got off the bus
and told him I would be seeing him soon. On the day of the shoot, Rogelio, Lynn
and myself got on Rick’s bus and photographed the scene for an hour as if we had
rented the bus and its driver. Rick dropped us off where we started. I gave him
$50 as I stepped off, thereby saving myself $950.
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We were also lucky to get Austin Studios for that first day. During pre-
production, I complained to Roy (a scene often repeated) about how the Austin
Studios people were not responding to my emails or telephone calls. Since we
were close by, Roy suggested we drive over un-announced and introduce
ourselves. We drove over and introduced ourselves. They showed us around,
asked us about the project, and were very enthusiastic. When we walked away we
had gotten their massive green screen studio for nothing. So after the informal
city bus trip, the first day of the shoot started formally with all-hands-on-deck at
Austin Studios, in a warehouse space large enough for our equipment truck and
all of our cars. It was climate-controlled, the ground was solid beneath our feet,
and the bathrooms were close at hand. The shoot went smoothly. We finished
the day on time and I was given several avuncular slaps on the back for my
scheduling prowess. We looked forward to clear blue skies and smooth sailing.
It was going to be a fun, painless shoot.
The next day would not go so well.
Day #2 was the worst shooting day I have ever suffered through. I
scheduled day #2 from 7:00am to 7:00pm. Twelve hours, tops. Most of it was in
an abandoned house in East Austin, which I had secured for one day to the tune
of $500. We struggled all day to get what we needed but everything took longer
than expected. I remember Rogelio’s exhausted look when he turned to me, late
into the night, saying I needed to finish the day soon, given he and Tomasz had
been on duty for 24 hours! I don’t know how the day got away. Somehow it
slipped away. I think the mistake was thinking I could photograph the special
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effects quickly. The interior of the abandoned house is where Penny slashes
Vanessa’s throat. I scheduled only one hour for the throat slashing. Applying
the latex throat appliance to the actress playing Vanessa took three hours. Ryan
and I failed to see these issues when making the schedule so many months
before. Choreographing the throat-slashing scene itself dragged on into the
night, as did cleaning the house afterward. We got fake blood everywhere, even
on the ceiling. When we were finally done, standing outside in a tired huddle, I
was not given an avuncular slap on the back. I was told firmly and without
equivocation by the crew that we were not going to have another day like day #2.
They were willing to give me one freebee, but that was it. They were very
diplomatic, and I thanked them for their mercy. Crew call for the next twelve-
hour day was in five hours.
Fortunately, the rest of the shoot went as smoothly as our schedule
anticipated. The trials of day #2 were an anomaly. Day #3 was a half-day at
Linder Elementary school, shooting exterior scenes, and days #4-#6 were in the
lake house location, a comfortable place to shoot. I rented the lake house from a
woman who rents her house to film productions for $100 a day. She lives there
but works during the day. After the lake house, we wrapped the female actors
and moved to Erin Randall’s house in North Austin for several days, shooting all
of Peter’s scenes with the assembled police officers and detective Karl. After
Randall’s house, the movie was over. We had a few little things to do, but the
bulk of production finished. We had done it. The film seemed to glide downhill
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after the second day, and I think the fact that we were shooting inside air-
conditioned houses helped quite a bit.
The only other difficult issue I can bring to mind over the course of the
shoot was getting a mostly male crew to temper their language around my child
actor. Nothing I said or did seemed to have any effect upon them. I sent email
reminders, gave cautious impromptu lectures over morning coffee, even pleaded
on occasion -- but as soon as two of them got together in the shared delight of a
common task, their thoughts inevitably turned to images of graphic sex and
violence. Soon after, verbose descriptions spilled out of their mouths
uncensored, always within earshot of Olivia and her mother. I talked this over
with Erin Randall, who was present on the set of a children’s feature shot in
Austin, and she said the problem is the same on big films too.
Haze was also a difficult issue. I bought a haze machine for this shoot, and
carelessly demanded that interiors be properly and thoroughly hazed before
every shot. This is not necessarily the most intelligent way to use haze. Haze is
beautiful but it will bite you in the ass. Haze is a kind of Zen. I have only just
begun to understand haze. Not just the act of hazing, of distributing haze in the
air, but knowing when and where to use it. Haze is like a beautiful and difficult
woman. Treat her carefully, with respect, and she will open up like a morning
glory, decorating your space in ways you thought unimaginable. But treat her
recklessly and she is a murdering mistress. I have courted haze and abused haze,
and I have been rewarded and punished by it. We lust after haze because it
makes the image poetic and remote. Haze is Faulknerian. All of those early
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Faulkner novels – As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury, A Light in August --
could only be photographed with haze. Faulkner’s short story “A Rose for Emily”
would be unthinkable without haze. When a character in a movie steps into an
empty room and a beam of sunlight cuts through the air, defining space, that
moment becomes magical and timeless. Haze enhances something all
cinematographers pine for: the intrusion of light. But when used improperly,
haze makes you look like an amateur. When a character is talking and smoke is
curling around their face like the room is on fire but they are too stupid to take
notice, it is time to admit haze has turned against you. I made a mistake by using
haze for a few close-ups. It doesn’t look that bad, but it does look a bit goofy on
occasion. Haze should not be used during close-ups, unless the background is
hazed and the haze is clearly defined by some background source. It is best, as a
rule, not to haze the foreground. Haze is properly used in wide shots, where
definition and volume is not easy to see. Haze is also good when used in distant
rooms. I have one remarkable shot in my thesis. Policemen are talking in a
foreground kitchen (not hazed) and in the background, Peter is sitting in a dining
room by a window, smoking. In that room haze surrounds him. Beams of yellow
light from the window cut through the air. It’s a beautiful moment. Haze makes
the room a confessional, an oubliette with walls made of cigarette smoke, and we
know that Peter is doomed. He has doomed himself. We know this because he is
creating the haze that surrounds him by smoking. It is a perfect image – perhaps
the one perfect image of my career. I wonder if anyone will notice the beauty and
potency of this image? Perhaps subconsciously they will notice. Regardless, the
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image would not have been possible without haze. Such is haze – I love it and I
hate it.
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POST-PRODUCTION
Post-production on “The Last Thing She Wanted” commenced more-or-
less directly after principal photography. Since we photographed the film on
XDCAM HD, I needed only to backup the HD scenes to my workstation and an
external hard drive. Syncing the images to the on-set audio was the only tedious
process I had to perform. I edited, sound-mixed, and color-corrected the movie
in my home studio, never leaving Final Cut Studio. I also composed the score
myself, as I had done for my pre-thesis “You Ruined Everything”, my 1st year
documentary “A Casebook on Remote Viewing”, and Erin Randall’s pre-thesis
“Hung Up”. The visual effects sequences in the film were done by Rogelio Salinas
and myself, in After Effects. Rogelio took care of the real-time throat slashing, I
did the green screen compositing and also some light object removal, such as
when a boom-pole dipped into the shot. Those things are very easy to remove in
After Effects.
For background plates used during the car drive scene, Roy Rutngamlug,
Rogelio Salinas, and myself drove out west, toward the Mandola Vineyard area, in
the same car we used to photograph the original conversation between Willa and
Penny. I photographed scenery through a small window in the back of the car.
I’m not sure why, but I asked that we not drive faster than 30mph. Perhaps it all
looked too fast at 60mph. Anyway, 30mph does look like 60mph on-screen. To
mitigate window reflections while shooting, I covered myself with duvetyn like a
hunter in a deer blind. I also mounted the camera on a sturdy tripod and we
double-sandbagged the whole apparatus to the floor. The footage works
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beautifully. If you look closely, you might notice the clouds are a tad shaky. I am
not sure how I could have totally eliminated camera shake. During our camera
tests we hand-held the camera, thinking a hand-held camera would make for a
smoother ride, but the constant ballooning motion of the image was intolerable
when viewed alongside the comparatively stable green screen footage. Perhaps a
smoother road and partially deflated tires? I think it might be worthwhile to put
a track point on the window near the bottom of the frame, and then use that point
to stabilize the footage later. Anyway, something for the future. The final
gimmick of the effect is putting artificial window reflections in the shot. As per a
conversation I had with Keefe Boerner, UT’s resident special effects guru, we shot
the car drive scene against the Austin Studios green screen with the windows
rolled down. I did an Internet image search for interior car images, and found
some great reflections to use. It completes the effect.
Rogelio composited the real-time throat slash. We photographed the
actress twice for that scene. For the first pass, we photographed her “clean”,
without the blood appliance on her neck. She went through the motions of the
scene, speaking her lines at normal speed and in slow motion. We then applied
the blood appliance (which included a hand-pump I manufactured from a device
used to wash boats) and shot the scene for a second time with the spurting blood
effect. Rogelio put the clean plate over the appliance in post, and it is seamless.
While editing the film I discovered a few moments that could be shored-
up, so during pickups (I shot pick-ups for three days, several weeks after
production formally ended) we got a few little pieces which have improved the
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film. One was a shot of Penny walking quickly into the room where Willa has
discovered the body of James. I forgot to get that piece during the chaos of
shooting. There were a few other small pieces like this, most of them
inconsequential, like extreme close-ups of phones ringing and such.
The most interesting and difficult aspect of editing has been getting the
film to duplicate the momentum of the script. Laying all the pieces of the film
down on the timeline in order, and letting the movie run, produced a slightly flat
movie. The rough cut was 50 minutes long. At 50 minutes, the movie lurched
forward in fits and starts. I think Patrick said it best when he watched the film
and realized he felt like he was always one step ahead of it. In order to get a film
to really sing, it has to be one step ahead of its viewer. Everything must seem
new, surprising, and must arrive before the viewer expects it. In my case, it
meant cutting some scenes completely and abridging several others. I had scenes
I thought were useful (such as the porch conversation between detective Karl and
Peter) but in the end all they did was slow the film down. It pains me to look
back at a few of the long shooting days, and realize now we could have cut them
in half had I known we were shooting things I was never going to use, but it’s
impossible to foresee these things. Eight actors have been cut from the film: two
adult speaking parts and six children. Getting those six children to the set and
directing those scenes was a major headache, but the scenes had to go. They were
weighing the film down like an anchor. I finally got the film down to 36 minutes.
It was rough but it was worth it. The momentum of the script has returned.
Whether anyone will like the movie is a different matter.
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“The Last Thing She Wanted” is a 36 minute film about child murder. It is
unrelentingly bleak. Penny’s story is passionate but ends in total darkness. The
child is not saved. The horror of Penny and Peter’s marriage, like a cigarette
smoldering in a cushion, finally ignites and burns the house down. We watch the
house burn down. This is the story Penny wanted me to tell. It’s a beautiful,
intense, dark story. As the credits roll, it lingers in the air, forever unresolved.
It’s a story of emotional abandonment.
A friend of mine said something very interesting about my 1st year film
“Tango Theory”. He said that watching a movie is like buying a ticket on an
airplane. This ticket, he said, ought to be a round-trip ticket. The tacit
agreement between the person on the plane and the people flying the plane is
that the plane will take off and go somewhere, but in the end, it will return to the
place it started. It will bring the audience back. He felt my film “Tango Theory”
took the audience somewhere, but then it abandoned them. There was no return
flight. The bad guy did not get punished for murdering his wife’s lover, and no
solution was proposed. The film ended with the horror of an unspoken cruelty
hanging in mid-air. This was a violation of the story-telling code. For him, to
show evil, horror, or pathology in the human heart, is not enough. There must be
resolution. A way out must be proposed. It is not enough to lift the rock in the
garden and show bugs squirming underneath.
I do not think my friend will not be happy with “The Last Thing She
Wanted” when he sees it. He will not understand why the film offers no solution,
why only innocent people die, and why the film has brought him to a remote
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island only to abandon him there, with Penny. Most people are afraid of being
alone, of being abandoned. It’s one of the worst feelings. This is what Penny is
telling us, I think, by showing us her story. The final scene is as cold as a breeze
from outer space. We are left in the dark with Penny and we cut to black seconds
before she murders Willa. Her plan has worked. She has lifted the rock in the
garden. We are alone with her as the cop cars are pulling up in the driveway.
What happens next?
I don’t think dove-tailing the plot to make it a more satisfying experience
for my friend would have been a good idea, even if it meant the film would be
palatable to more people. Why tell this story at all? Why not make a heart-
warming coming-of-age story that caresses some publically agreed upon
sentiment, celebrating the specific culture, gender, and sexual orientation of my
protagonist? People love those stories. Why this story? Why Penny?
For me, Penny’s story was an enigma. What kind of woman buys a
flower, just to take it home and watch it die? Her story was macabre in its
single-mindedness. It was passionate, beautiful, and dark. I felt drawn into its
current and pulled forward. I wrote things down as I saw them. I allowed the
story to tell itself. There is an apocryphal story about how Robert E. Howard
began writing his Conan stories. Robert E. Howard was a Texas writer. Sitting
alone before his typewriter in his Cross Plains home, Howard claimed he saw the
glint of an axe by his side, and felt the presence of a man standing behind him.
That man told Howard who he was, and asked Howard to begin telling his story.
Howard began writing his first Conan the Barbarian stories at the prodding of
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this shadowy figure, telling them as if he were transcribing a record of the man’s
adventures. They are dark, violent, unrelentingly cruel stories set on the fringes
of civilization. They were also hugely popular and have endured because of their
potency. They were Conan’s stories, not Robert’s.
I think the film artist, to be a serious artist intent on making anything of
enduring quality, must follow their heart and make films which are fascinating to
them. At some point you have to let go and let the idea lead you, to see how far
the rabbit hole goes. You will not know what kind of work you are really able to
produce if you do not allow the seed to take root and grow into whatever
formation it desires to become. Prune, yes. Train. Help it grow. But to graft
foreign material to your vine so that it obeys a socially agreed upon shape. That
is artistic suicide. For this reason, whatever the failures of “The Last Thing She
Wanted” might be, I feel at least like I got that part right. I told the story that
Penny wanted me to tell, and I feel I’ve taken the film as far as I can take it. My
response to why I made this film is to show it to you.
I’ll leave this report with a few words from T.S. Eliot. Though Eliot is
talking about writing in this passage, I think he might just as well be referring to
making movies.
So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
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Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
-T.S. Eliot, East Coker
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APPENDIX A: SCRIPT
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APPENDIX B: SHOT LIST
1
INT. BUS - 7am
Description: Penny rides the bus, toys with her rosary, gets off.
Central Event of Scene: Penny’s piousness. Penny’s fear.
Things the Audience Must See: Penny toying with her rosary. The fear & confusion on Penny’s face. Where is she? Is this the right stop?
1A WIDE BUS FRONT WINDOW & DRIVER
A reasonably wide shot of the front window and the oncoming road.
1B WIDE PENNY RIDING THE BUS (REVERSE of 1A)
Penny riding the bus. This would be an awesome dolly forward. Perhaps a slow zoom.
1C ECU ROSARY (PENNY’S PROFILE)
1D CU ROSARY then TILT UP to CU (PENNY’S PROFILE)
A close-up of the rosary (+cross) tilting upward to Penny’s face. Does Penny keep the rosary in her hands or put it on? When? Carry the scene forward all the way to Penny stepping up and waiting for the bus to stop. Perhaps Penny looks at the oncoming road & the camera pans over to see something, then pans back to Penny’s hand as she pulls the cable then pans to follower her as she waits for the door to open. Does Penny pace like a tiger?
1E SUN RISING OUT THE WINDOW (PENNY POV)
Shot through the bus window of the sun rising.
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2
EXT. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL - 8am
Description: Willa gets dropped off at school by Vanessa, Penny watches.
Central Event of Scene: This woman WANTS something…but what? Who is she after, Vanessa or Willa?
Things the Audience Must See: Vanessa and Willa.
2A MS PENNY WALKING TOWARD SCHOOL
Should be a dolly show but will have to be a pan to follow. Have kids run by, adults walking, something.
2B CU PENNY
Sees the SUV pulling up, watches Willa & Vanessa. Follows SUV away, then turns back to look at Willa.
2C MS BEHIND PENNY – SUV APPEARS AND STOPS
Would be nice to get the camera on a dolly or the hood of a car. Penny turns right to see SUV coming and we follow, then pan with the SUV as it drives up and stops.
2D MS WILLA GETS OUT, SAYS GOODBYE TO VANESSA, SUV LEAVES
Willa gets out, says goodbye to Vanessa. Vanessa hands her a watercolor drawing or drawing pad. SUV pulls away. Get one where you stay on Willa (slow zoom in) and another where you follow the SUV away.
2E MS OTHER KIDS
Time permitting, some MS shots of other kids/parents from Penny’s POV.
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3
EXT. TINY HOUSE - 10pm
Description: Penny stands outside a tiny house, Carlo & Julius arrive, Vanessa arrives, the women enter the house.
Central Event of Scene: These neighborhoods are threatening. Penny dons her disguise.
Things the Audience Must See: Carlo and Julius. Penny getting glasses from her purse. Vanessa’s legs. ONLY PENNY GETS A CLOSE-UP.
3A MS PENNY IN FRONT YARD
Run the whole scene. Include Vanessa in the MS when she approaches Penny.
3B CU PENNY IN FRONT YARD
Pan down to see Penny’s purse, then up to her face when she puts on the glasses.
3C MS SUV AS IT PULLS UP THEN MS VANESSA
Run the whole scene, following the SUV in and Vanessa as she pulls up and gets out of the car, approaches Penny, shoos the boys away, and enters house.
3D CU VANESSA’S LEGS PANNING UP TO VANESSA
3E MS NEIGHBORHOOD VIEW CARLO AND JULIUS (PENNY’S POV)
Looking out at the neighborhood. Carlo and Julius appear on their bikes, stop nearby. Vanessa arrives. Carlo and Julius heckle then peddle away.
3F CU CARLO AND JULIUS FOR THE HECKLING (PENNY’S POV)
Run scene. They stop, heckle, then peddle away.
3G WIDE HOUSE FROM TOP OF UHAUL
Run the scene.
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4
INT. TINY HOUSE - 10pm
Description: Vanessa leads Penny through the house to the master bedroom.
Central Event of Scene: Vanessa shows Penny how horrible the past is.
Things the Audience Must See: The house. Little moments. Think like Fellini.
4A MS VANESSA -- PENNY’S POV
Hand held. Start with an MS of both women then enter Penny’s POV. Where does Vanessa put her purse? Follow Vanessa as if you were Penny looking at her. Get important details. Sweep away to look at the house, then sweep back to Vanessa. Make it creepy. Penny is over your LEFT shoulder
4B MS PENNY -- VANESSA’S POV
Hand held. Watch Penny as she follows Vanessa. Make it creepy. Vanessa is over your RIGHT shoulder.
4C MS FEET
Get their feet walking through the house – Vanessa’s heels and Penny’s running shoes.
4D SWEEPING SHOTS OF HOUSE – PENNY’S POV
Little details of the house as the two women pass various rooms.
4E ROOM POV’S
Time permitting, enter each room and photograph the women passing or entering from the “room’s POV”.
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5
INT. TINY HOUSE - 10am
Description: Penny murders Vanessa in the master bedroom.
Central Event of Scene: Murder of Vanessa, Penny’s resolve.
Things the Audience Must See: Penny reaching into her purse, Vanessa’s blood effect.
REHEARSE SCENE FIRST AND SECURE BLOCKING
5A MS PENNY
Run scene with MS Penny. Pan down to show her unzipping her purse and putting her glasses away. Go ahead and have her take the knife out and do a sudden pan up for the slash. Get the slash without the pan up also. Should we splash blood on Penny’s face during the slash?
5B CU PENNY’S PURSE
Penny takes the knife out of her purse.
5C WIDE ROOM
Dolly shot. Run the whole scene with blood pump effect taped to Vanessa’s arm. Dolly should be setup parallel to far wall.
5D REVERSE ON PENNY, COVERED WITH BLOOD, TAKING OFF HER WIG
CLEAN UP VANESSA
5E MS VANESSA (CLEAN)
Get slashing with Vanessa clean. Have Vanessa move in slow motion. Take a picture of the viewfinder.
PUT APPLIANCE ON VANESSA
PUT TARP ON FLOOR
5F MS VANESSA (DIRTY)
Vanessa with blood effect.
RECORD SOUNDS OF VANESSA GASPING
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6
INT. TINY HOUSE LIVING ROOM – 10am
Description: Penny, covered with blood, returns to main room and takes Vanessa's phone.
Central Event of Scene: Penny is following through with a plan.
Things the Audience Must See: Vanessa’s cell phone being turned OFF.
6A WIDE TO MS
This would be a perfect pedestal shot. We start wide with Penny, covered with blood, emerging from the far room and then we pedestal down low to include Vanessa’s purse in the foreground and Penny rummaging through it.
6B ECU PENNY
Zoom up and get an ECU of Penny while you are here.
6C CU PENNY’S POV -- SWITCHING OFF PHONE
Penny switches the phone off. Her hand is bloody.
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7
EXT. TINY HOUSE - 10am
Description: Penny, covered with blood, encounters Carlo. Standoff. Penny gets in SUV.
Central Event of Scene: Penny reveals herself for who she is: an instrument of God.
Things the Audience Must See: Penny revealing herself. She is a divine agent. Carlo’s response has to be subtle, not overdone.
7A WIDE PENNY EXITING HOUSE & ENTERING SUV
Hand held. Run the scene. Carlo pulls up frame LEFT, gets off bike, we follow over his shoulder. Can this be made better? Perhaps Carlo swoops by and we follow him out, then he swoops back.
7B MS PENNY
Run the scene from Carlo’s POV. Significant part is Penny turning around to face him. Carlo is over your LEFT shoulder.
7C MS CARLO
Run the scene from Penny’s POV. Penny is over your RIGHT shoulder. Carlo gets back on his bike & peddles off.
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8, 18
EXT. HOUSE – 11am (8) 3pm (18)
Description: SUV pulls up to Peter's house (8), and Peter pulls up and gets out, throws bike over fence (18)
Central Event of Scene: Peter’s impatience.
Things the Audience Must See:
8A WIDE EXTREME HIGH ON U-HAUL
On U-Haul. The white SUV pulls up.
TIME CHANGE
18A WIDE EXTREME HIGH ON U-HAUL
On U-Haul. Run Peter’s scene as a master.
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9-10 (CONDENSED TO 9)
INT. HOUSE LIVING ROOM (9) & KITCHEN (10) – 11am
Description: Penny enters the house, goes to the kitchen, takes picture of Peter off refrigerator
Central Event of Scene: This is where the action will soon take place, so we see it all WIDE for the first time.
Things the Audience Must See: Pictures of Peter, Willa and Vanessa.
9A WIDE LIVING ROOM AND KITCHEN
Dolly shot. Start with a wide of Penny entering the living room, then dolly to a wide of the kitchen. Follow-through to get her walking into the second living room. Have her stop in the middle of the room and look out at the back porch.
9B CU/MS PENNY TO CU/MS REFRIGERATOR TO CU/MS PENNY
Penny enters kitchen, sees refrigerator. We pan to a CU/MS of photos on the refrigerator. Penny reaches up, takes a picture of Peter off, and we follow it down to a CU/MS of her.
9C ECU PICTURES ON REFRIGERATOR
Get a nice slow pan of the pictures. Rest on Peter’s picture and get Penny’s hand pulling it off.
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11, 26
INT. HOUSE SHOWER (11) and BATHROOM (26) - DAY
Description: Penny takes a shower and Peter discovers bloody clothes in bathroom. "Sleepy Family" written in lipstick.
Central Event of Scene: Who is this boy in the picture?
Things the Audience Must See: Photo o